Daylight had long since fallen, but the firefighters continued to come and go, the flashlights on their helmets moving like fireflies and illuminating the scene. Two of them came out, soaked to the head and dressed in red overalls, to inspect the last car left to be collected at the entrance to the loading dock. exit from Bonaire.
Others were returning from the last sweep of the day in the parking lot of the shopping center across the street, an establishment where it was feared hundreds of people could have been trapped. A fear that grew as messages began to circulate on social networks reporting, without evidence, 250 or more deaths.
Throughout the day, while signs of devastation were everywhere, the extraction pumps pumped water and continued to do so at night, until completely emptying the single floor of the parking lot where, in the late afternoon By midday on Monday, the water even reached the metro. . Fire crews from La Rioja, Salamanca and Huelva were submerged there.
Rafa Sancha, who came from the Andalusian city, stopped during one of the breaks to explain to journalists from the Spanish and international media gathered on the side of the road, what had started to be seen since the morning, after the declaration of the police. which specified that, in the first 50 cars searched, no victims had been found: “The cars were searched inside and there was nothing. But there is still water and it cannot be ruled out that no one was left underneath.
The new scans which will be carried out this Tuesday will serve to reinforce the hope that the passage of hours fueled in the midst of a collective effort. The UME firefighters and soldiers were joined here by volunteers from the EMT, Madrid’s municipal transport company. A group of some of the 60 men who headed towards Valencia three days ago – and who had dispersed to different parts of the province – arrived early in the afternoon with a shovel and a 4×4 truck to help firefighters evacuate the cars that were still underwater in the exit.
There were only three, but the operation to remove them took hours. When the water level had dropped sufficiently, the firefighters went down first, armed with sticks and dressed in white waterproof suits, and advanced among the remains of pallets and all kinds of objects floating in the muddy water. As they approached the first car, firm knocks were heard that shattered the windows.
After a quick first inspection, we come to Alfonso, a strong and smiling man, with a look marked by fatigue. He got on the loader that usually circulates in the streets of Madrid and began to clear the way out of the garage. Then it was the turn of other of his colleagues, who approached with the truck which was going to remove the first car, the second and finally, a few hours later, a third, on which the firefighters had not initially counted and which extended the operation after an inspection. . complete.
At the end of the afternoon, all gathered in a circle, the volunteers declared with some pride that many members of the company had volunteered and that other groups were preparing to take over for a mission that would last a long time. Shocked by the scale of the disaster, some complained of a lack of coordination. “We came to work, not to watch. And you get to the command post and they don’t know how to organize you, where to put you,” one said.
“Until the command post is organized with the vehicles we have, the personnel we have and what we know how to do, we have to wait a little, which is also normal,” said Juan Manuel Ruiz, group coordinator. “But your blood boils and ten minutes seems very long, like when someone has swallowed a raspberry and is not breathing,” he added.
